Losing Face over COVID Olympics

A coronavirus state of emergency has been extended in the capital Tokyo   EPA

"We strongly request that the authorities convince the IOC [International Olympic Committee] that holding the Olympics is difficult, and obtain its decision to cancel the Games."

"[Tokyo hospitals] have their hands full and have almost no space capacity."

Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association

"Under various clauses within this host city agreement, if Japan was to unilaterally cancel the contract, then by and large, the risks and losses would fall with the local organizing committee."  

"Contracts can foresee certain contingencies, but the nature of the current situation is obviously unprecedented."   

"The Olympics are the biggest sporting event on the calendar, there are billions at stake for Japan and also the IOC in terms of broadcasting sponsorship. It is a huge event and there are huge contractual obligations for all sides."

Professor Jack Anderson, University of Melbourne   

 

"Of course I want the Olympics to happen. But I think there's so much important stuff going on, especially the past year."   

"For me, I feel like if it's putting people at risk... then it definitely should be a discussion, which I think it is as of right now."

"At the end of the day, I'm just an athlete, and there is a whole pandemic going on."

Japanese tennis champion Naomi Osaka

There have been mounting calls in Japan to cancel the major sporting event   Getty Images

 

A letter was recently sent to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga expressing concerns that the health care system would fail to accommodate the potential medical requirements of thousands of international athletes, coaches and media, at the same time that Asia's second-largest economy is focused on a life-and-death struggle with a spike once again in coronavirus infections. What made this letter, released this week so significant is that it was from the 6,000-primary-care physicians in Tokyo represented by the Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association.

Japanese public opinion has also turned against hosting the Summer Games, already delayed once before. This letter represents the second from a group of doctors in recent weeks calling for the Olympics' cancellation. One petition contained over 370,000 signatures, all calling for the event's cancellation. In Tokyo on Tuesday, there were 732 new coronavirus infections reported. Of the country's 47 prefectures, 19 are operating under a state of emergency.

On Monday, a poll was released indicating merely 14 percent of Japanese residents are now interested in having the games proceed this summer. Scheduled to begin on July 23. Japan's President Suga had insisted he had the confidence that a "safe and secure" Olympics could be handled by the country. A country where only a single-digit percentage of its seniors have been vaccinated with at least one dose of vaccine.

 

In the first half of the 20th Century there were only three Olympics cancellations, and all of them were as the result of intervening wars.

Tellingly enough, in 1936 when the Third Reich was comfortably establishing its European takeover agenda and its international public relations arm was working full time on demonstrating to the world at large that all the rumours heard about Fascist Germany were just plain wrong, the only cancelled participators were Jewish athletes; no country in the global community saw fit to protest Hitler's obvious coming power plays, lulled into complacency by a successful campaign to blinker Germany's critics.

"Japan has seen economic stagnation for a long time, there has been the tsunami and the nuclear disaster of Fukushima, so the Games would be seen as symbolic of a revival of Japan,."

"It does take a special importance in that sense."

Professor Jack Anderson

Only about 1% of Japanese are fully vaccinated so far   Reuters